Navy's 'Lost Patrol' Of 1945 Honored

Torpedo Bombers On Routine Flight Training Mission Vanished

The five Navy torpedo bombers took off from Fort Lauderdale on a routine flight training mission - and never returned.

That was Dec. 5, 1945. On Saturday, 64 years later, a ceremony will be held to remember Flight 19, also known as the Lost Patrol, and the 14 men who perished.

Aviation, military and history buffs plan to gather at 1:30 p.m. at Navy Park, near the control tower on the west side of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

"I think it's important to remember the men who died on that day," said Allan McElhiney of Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, a historical association that stages the annual ceremony. "They had their lives ahead of them."

Among the guests: Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, former Mayor Jim Naugle, aviation historian Walt Houghton and two Navy officers who were at the air station the day Flight 19 took off, Lt. Jim Westfall and Lt. Dave White.

Flight 19 remains one of the great aviation mysteries. The bombers have never been found.

The single-engine planes took off from what was then the Fort Lauderdale Naval Air Station, planning to practice dropping bombs at a range in the Bahamas and to conduct a navigational exercise.

About 90 minutes after takeoff, the crew members reported that they were lost.

Historians think the squadron became disoriented in bad weather and nighttime darkness and crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off Daytona Beach.

The flight popularized the myth of the Bermuda Triangle, the area between Bermuda, Puerto Rico and Fort Lauderdale where boats and planes have mysteriously vanished.